


Left Hand of Fate

by Spylace



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Cultural Differences, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Identity Issues, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, POV Alternating, Politics, Qunari Culture and Customs, Qunari Physiology, Saving the World, Slow Build, Trauma, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 18:31:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12114663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: A hero's lot is never easy.Adaar learns this first hand when he wakes up with his horns cut off and a mark that's slowly killing him.





	1. The Breach

**Author's Note:**

> Rating, category, and relationship subject to change. 
> 
> Self-indulgent fill for some of the gorgeous prompts at Dragon Age Kink Meme.

He woke in agony.

The hands that held him down did not belong to his kith or the Qun. They were human. Dainty and graceful like Ashaad and his laurel flute. They dug past the leathers of his coat and into the seams of his body, stripping him of movement, pinning him easily as Katoh would a fly that had dared disturb her sleep.

But they were not kith and he struggled when he tasted fresh blood in the air.

“ _Viddathari_.” He wheezed.                               

Their movements barely faltered. Instead, they began to speak in low hushed tones as though placating him to suffer sleep once more.

“What did he say?”

“Vi-something? Vi, vi, vi, vittles? Maybe he’s hungry?”

“Are you  _guessing_?”

The ice in the woman’s voice could have given Shokrakar a run for her money.

“This is bloody work.” A man muttered in a low, grim voice. “I doubt that he’s thinking with his stomach.”

They tugged on his horns. He threw up at the first touch of jagged teeth on the base.

 “Give him water.” Someone suggested. A pitcher was promptly dumped over his head and he realized, in despair, that his hair had been shorn. He no longer felt the comfortable weight of his braid on his shoulder. He coughed when he inhaled the wrong way.

“I said give him water, not drown him.”

“He moved.” The waterbearer said sulkily but pulled his head forward so he could breathe, resting his head againist her belly.

The waterbearer had a sword on her waist. She was beautiful in a way all weapons were beautiful. A double-edged sword that could easily cut its wielder as it would an enemy. The flickering lights of a torch fire outlined her lean face, the sharp cheekbones and a scar that cut through her cheeks.

It was ironic because Adaar was a name he had chosen for himself. He was a weapon too.

“Are you going to stitch my lips?” He asked wonderingly.

“And why would I do that?” Asked the waterbearer.

He recognized the tight numbness of elfroot flowing through his veins.

“You’ve cut my horns.” He accused.

“We are not barbarians!” The waterbearer said hotly.

“Where is my kith?”

The waterbearer turned to her translator. A twitchy-looking human with curled hair.

“His kith—he’s a mercenary, Seeker. He’s probably looking for his company.”

She turned back to him.

“We found no others.” 

“No.” A woman confirmed, sounding thoughtful.

He might as well have taken fireballs to the back of his skull. He jerked his head from the waterbearer and bucked, knocking the weight off of his knees. A soldier fell to the ground in a sprawl, accompanied by a clanging noise. He kicked his leg out and caught another in the chest.

“Hold him down!”

Six humans struggled to hold him.

“Don’t we have anything stronger than elfroot?”

“I have powdered mushrooms.”

He panicked at the continued rasp of saws on his horn.

“Ben’adar kadan-asit?  _Kadan-asit_?!”

“What is he saying now?”

“He’s looking for a heart. He wants a heart.”

“A  _heart_.”

“Qunlat is metaphoric!”

“We may have to knock him out.”

“Alright.”

“No, don’t hit him!”

Someone cursed.

“Oh I’ll do it.”

A hand grabbed him by the throat. He looked.

It was a woman.

Her hair made her look as though she was on fire.

 

He stopped breathing.

Cassandra guessed that Leliana was just as surprised. Their only chance to close the rift and they blew it. They watched, wide-eyed as suddenly, the Qunari lurched under the butcher’s knife, dragging air into his lungs like a starving man.

But his eyes were unseeing and they pried his mouth open to see that he hadn’t choked on his tongue. There was nothing there. Nothing to block his airways but he stopped breathing again and again and again.

“What in the Maker’s name is going on?” She demanded.

The Qunari’s hand fell open and the light it spilt burned bright enough to leave an impression in her eyes. A breach at the back of her skull to match the one preying on her thoughts.

“More embrium.” Adan decided. “We can give the poor bastard that much at least.”

The Qunari spoke again, his accent lush and exotic to her untrained ears.

Cowed by her glare, their translator said quickly, “Brothers, I am not a dangerous thing—that’s their word for mages. And err... Tell the rebel he owes her a blade?”

“The rebel?” Leliana asked intrigued.

Cassandra snorted.

“He is fever-mad. For all we know, he could be asking a baker for morning bread.”

“It is a start.” Leliana conceded. “The Tal-Vashoth are often hirelings for mercenary groups.”

“ _Katoh_.” The Qunari whimpered.

“Stop, that means stop.” The translator said.

“We can’t.” Adan said flatly. “Or we lose him completely.”

Cassandra got to her feet and nodded at the man holding pieces of molten metal.

“Do it.”

 

It was a week before the Qunari woke again, a week before he was coherent, eyes cleared from the red haze of fever. She had to struggle not to hurry. Not to open the door before the brute was strung up on his knees, his hands carefully bound.

The swish of heavy cloth told her that Leliana too had heard the news.

The Qunari looked at her wearily when she entered.

Cassandra dispensed with all pleasantries. Time was of the essence. Varric had been most unhelpful in locating the Champion of Kirkwall. The Hero of Ferelden, even if he could be found, was out of the question.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now. The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except you.”

The Qunari’s mouth remained stubbornly shut.

“What happened,” Cassandra asked, words snarling themselves near the end. “At the Conclave?”

“Where is my kith?” The Qunari countered. His voice was stronger than the pitiful rasp when they had amputated his horns. His head looked oddly bereft now that they were gone. Softened by his white mane. “There were others like me. My company. Where are they?”

“We found no other survivors.” Leliana answered, eyes shrewd and calculating.

The Qunari rose to his feet.

She realized that the Qunari was young. He was not as burly as some of the wandering mercenaries. Not as thick at the waist though his hide was no less scarred for it. But the way he flinched from the flickering torchlight, folding in on himself as though something was tugging on his spine, his head bowed,  _hornless_ , made him waifish and small. He was like a wounded animal trying to defend himself.

The Qunari spread his feet apart. He was likely to crack his skull if he charged. At this angle, she could see where the broken peaks had been filled with wax to stop the infection.

She winced. They’d disfigured him. If his horns grew back, they would never be the same.

Cassandra held up a hand before Leliana could hit him with dose of embrium. It had taken five to stop him from stirring when he was poled. Less than what Leliana had prepared but more than safe if they wanted him alive.

The room shook when he hurled himself forward. He did not bash his head against the door but rather turned slightly so that most of his weight went in his shoulder. The mark on his palms crackled in spurts of green flame.

She frowned as he lunged again.

Dirt fell in scattered showers from the crags of the ceiling. Her men shifted nervously.

“Stop.” She said firmly. “You’re hurting yourself.”

The Qunari did not respond. His tackles grew slower and weaker. He was tiring himself out.

 _Maker’s breath_ —she cursed as he slid to the floor panting. She had no time for tantrums.

“Are you quite finished?” The Qunari turned to her. His eyes were blown wide, blue like Orlesian glass. “Come, let me show you something.”

 

She took him outside. The Qunari stared up at the sky in awe, dyed green by the Breach, unaware of the whispers growing around them.

“What happened?”

“We call it the Breach. It is a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger and larger with each passing hour. It is not the only such rift, simply the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave.”

The Qunari shook his head.

“You keep saying that. What explosion?”

“Then you truly do not remember?” Leliana sided up beside her, peering through her eyelashes.

“I don’t remember anything. I just... we were at the Conclave. We were supposed to protect some fancy dwarven merchant.”

The mark on his hand flared with a roar. The Qunari fell to his knees in pain and grabbed his wrist, unable to control his left hand from saluting the sky.

“Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads. We believe that it may be killing you.”

“Very tactful.” Leliana commented dryly. Cassandra ignored her and continued on, “But it may be the key to stopping this. There isn’t much time. Come.”

“Do I have a choice?”

Cassandra pulled him to his feet.

“None of us have a choice.”

 

They found bodies. More bodies than they knew what to do with. But no Qunari. Not even an impression in the ash to mark where they fell.

Cassandra did not know if this was of any comfort to Adaar. Leliana’s agents hadn’t been able to unearth much on his supposed family the Valo-Kas. She knew that they were a mercenary company. Tightly knit like most Qunari who found themselves outside the Qun. All were Qunari save for one surface dwarf.

The translator told them ‘Adaar’ meant ‘fire thrower’. Josephine had summarily paid him and sent him on his way after Cassandra had stared too long.

Adaar circled his role suspiciously. He seemed incredulous that they had held up their end of the bargain and why not? He was fade-touched. The people were calling him the Herald of Andraste. They had tried to keep his origins a secret but it had only been a matter of time before people found out. Even without Chancellor Roderick bringing the Frostbacks down on their heads.

“Am I to be your prisoner?” He asked.

“You are part of the Inquisition now.”

“A pampered prisoner then.” Adaar commented without mirth. “All for this.”

The mark on his palm flickered as he closed them and shut.

“The Breach remains. Your mark is our only hope of closing it.”

“Then give me a reason.” Adaar said wearily. “Give me a reason other than saving this thrice-blasted world that hates me for what I am.”

There was nothing to say to that. People would hate him. A Qunari mercenary praised as the Herald of Andraste. It was unheard of; it was blaspheme. The Chantry would never accept it. Divine Justinia might have. But she was dead along with other progressive thinkers that might have attempted to fill her shoes.

Leliana had already caught whispers of at least one mage contacted to remove the mark from Adaar’s hand. But surprisingly, it was Josephine who spoke up.

“The Breach is not the only threat we face. Someone was behind the explosion at the Conclave. They killed her holiness. But they killed your family too. We will find those responsible but we need your help.”

“Well done.” Leliana mouthed.

Adaar took a deep breath.

“Okay. I accept.” 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“And these are your rooms.”

“Oh.” He said. “It’s ah, lovely.”

After a moment, he asked, “Will I be sharing?”

Josephine laughed like it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.

“Whatever for? No, you are the Herald of course. We thought you might appreciate the space after everything that’s happened.”

After everything that had happened.

His company was dead. The Conclave was destroyed. The five words sanitized his experiences into a neat package. Yet another milestone in the Dragon Age. But he did not voice his thoughts aloud. They were his and his alone.

“Thank you Lady Montilyet.” He said instead, his smile thin. “It’s very kind of you.”

“Please, call me Josephine.”

“Josephine.” He repeated numbly. “Thank you.”

Satisfied, Josephine nodded. “If you need anything inquisitor, please do not hesitate to ask.”

As soon as the door shut behind him, Adaar sank to the floor. He kept expecting his horns to knock against the human-sized, elf-sized, bas-sized doorway and was surprised when they didn’t. Because they were gone, sawed off at the base and sealed with yellow wax.

They would never been the same. He wanted—he would not have been able to grow them out. Not with the kind of jobs he took. Horns were a statement. A symbol of status. At most, he would have allowed them to curl behind his ear. Smoothed down like those of a varghest. But most of all, he wanted someone to assure him that they hadn’t been taken away. That he wasn’t something dangerous to be polled and chained. Locked inside a room like he had done something wrong.

He went to the bed at the center of the room. A makeshift mattress of blankets and hay for someone his size, his stature. He sniffed at the pillows. Druffalo hide. He’d seen a small herd skate across the lake in daylight.

It wasn’t a bad smell, he decided. The hide had been cured well. It formed like butter around his back and hips.

It was kind of them. His hand crackled to remind him the price of kindness.

He rolled over to blow out the candles and waited for sleep to overtake him.

Instead, in the darkness, anxiety prickled his spine. Shokrakar used to joke that he was half-nug on account of his timidness. Maybe he was. What he knew for certain was that he did not last half a candle-mark before he surged awake, a fist down his throat to block the screams.

He’d found nothing of his company. No weapons, no bone, not even the pretty scraps of cloth Kaariss liked to tie around his arm.

His company was gone. He had been left behind.

Outside, Adaar stepped into a dream. It was surreal seeing a giant, glowing tear where the moon used to be. He watched the rift pulse, casting the world in a poisoned, green light. Whomever had torn open the sky, blew up the Conclave, murdered the Divine, had taken his company away. He would find them. And when he found them, they would die slowly and painfully.

Eventually, his feet took him towards the stables.

Stables was a generous term. What was left was a small lean-to against Chantry walls. Boarded up with scrap wood and mud. Held together with little more than spit and a prayer.

There was no one around guarding the door. Mostly because there was nothing left to steal. The good mounts had died with their owners at the Conclave. The ones that were left were the lame and the ill, saved to become supper for another day.

The survivors neighed an unsuspecting hello when he entered. Starved for company, they thrust their pretty noses over the stall doors and he stopped to pet them, feeling their muzzles warm his good hand. Adaar picked out a skinny pony that had bedded down for the night. It didn’t even blink as he crept in.

The night was cold and their breaths turned into steam. But against the pony’s spotted side, he felt warm.  

 

“Ugh.” Cassandra said the next morning when he trotted up to her, face wrinkling into one of disgust. “You smell like a barn.”

He shrugged. She wasn’t too far off the mark.

Waving him off, she stomped a distance away.

Adaar turned to sniff at himself. This was the first time he’d been told he smelled by a bas. Usually the complaints tended to be visual. The way he smelled wasn’t what got him jobs after all.

“Go. Wash.” Cassandra demanded.

“But.”

“No buts.”

He rolled his eyes.

“We have a world to save.” He pointed out reasonably.

“It can wait.”

Sighing, Adaar nodded. He didn’t want to argue. Not with her. It wasn’t his place. She reminded him a bit of Shokrakar.

“I’ll be back.”

“Take your time.” Cassandra said and he could tell she meant it.

 

He tracked the lake’s edge to the other side where he could see Haven in all its glory. The few nugs that had been playing under the dock scampered away at his approach. Their tiny feet kicked up a loose trail for him to follow. But there were plenty of elfroot peeking out where the patches of snow were thin. Adaar chewed on the broad, three-fingered leaves and spat them out when they were spent.

His armor dropped in the snow. The weather was cold but he had been in worse places. When he was sure that no one had followed, not even the spymaster’s ravens, he laid a hand against the ice and it shattered into a thousand pieces.

 

Cassandra and Josephine were arguing outside his door. The two women appeared surprised when he came up to them, face clean and wet.

“Herald.”

“You are back.”

“Was I gone?”

“No.” Josephine said slowly. “But Cassandra mentioned that you had gone to bathe.”

“I did.”

“Without water?”

He didn’t know where this was going.

“I went to the lake.” He clarified, in case it wasn’t immediately obvious and the way the both women reacted were almost comical. Josephine’s jaws dropped in a dignified tut while Cassandra astonishment manifested into anger.

“Why in the Maker’s name...”

“Come,” Josephine said briskly, hooking her arm in the crook of his elbow. “Sit, you’ll catch your death.”

Josephing was stronger than she looked. He was pulled in through the doorway and pushed down until he was sitting on the mattress. And even then, she had to tiptoe to throw a blanket over him.

“Bathing in the lake.” She muttered in her honeyed, Antivan accent. “You are worse than my brother and even he has sense not to go swimming in winter.”

Cowed, Adaar asked, “How else would I do it?”

“We have attendants for this sort of thing.”

“Mercenary.” He reminded her. “I didn’t know.”

He wasn’t used to being fussed over either.

“I’m not totally helpless.” He protested, when a mug of hot ale was pressed into his hands. Freshwater was better than salt. And as requested, he no longer smelled like he’d spent the night next to a manure pile.

Cassandra knelt to strike a fire in the hearth and he tried to get up to help, only to have his feet knocked from under him. He fell on the mattress with a soft whump.

“My apologies Herald,” Josephine said sweetly. “It’s difficult to believe that when you seem to lack the sense of a boy in his thirteenth summer.”

“Just Adaar.” He said. “Please.”

“Of course. How is your head Lord Adaar?”

“It’s fine.” He said at the reminder. “I’ve kept it dry.”

“Do horns take a long time to grow?”

“I don’t know.” He said, taking a sip of the ale. All the Qunari, Tal-Vashoth and the Vashoth he’d known were adults. He could only speak for himself.

“We could commission a cap for them if you’d like.” She offered.

“I don’t know.” He said dubiously. “I don’t want to give you any trouble.”

“Nonsense.” Josephine insisted. “I will ask Harritt if he can requisition something appropriate.”

Cassandra cleared her throat to interrupt them.

“Leliana may have found us a way to contact the Chantry.”

“Didn’t they denounce the Inquisition for blaspheme? Because I’m Qunari?”

“A Chantry Cleric by the name of Mother Giselle has asked to speak to you. Leliana believes that her assistance could be invaluable.”

“Oh, I’ll see what she has to say.”

“By your leave herald.”

He finished off his ale.

“Alright, let’s go.”

 

Solar opened his eyes.

Tiny wisps gathered around him in greetings. They had news—fragments of news. Words. Words that did not make sense taken out of context. But he had time. The rift would stay open another day.

He took his usual rounds and visited familiar places. Spirits he knew. Spirits who were numb to the passage of the time.

The fade was influenced greatly by the mind. Due to recent events, he found himself recreating the scene at Haven. Smokestacks fogging the air and the rift a wound to be mended against the backdrop of the night’s sky. He remembered the events at the Conclave very well and swaths of crisp memory painted itself in the snow.

In the distance, he heard screams.

A massive shape broke through his dreams like a hammer blow against an eluvian. The shock of it threw him against the ground and he knelt as storms were created in its wake. The corrupt light revealed its twisting shape, the swept horns and painted wings.

_A dragon—!_

 


End file.
